Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 09/14/2010 12:49:17 PM PDT by Shermy
ROME (Reuters) – Italy Tuesday seized Mafia-linked assets worth $1.9 billion -- the biggest mob haul ever -- in an operation revealing that the crime group was trying to "go green" by laundering money through alternative energy companies.
Investigators said the assets included more than 40 companies, hundreds of parcels of land, buildings, factories, bank accounts, stocks, fast cars and luxury yachts.
Most of the seized assets were located in Sicily, home of the Cosa Nostra, and in southern Calabria, home of its sister crime organization, the 'Ndrangheta.
At the center of the investigation was Sicilian businessman Vito Nicastri, 54, a man known as the "Lord of the Wind" because of his vast holdings in alternative energy concerns, mostly wind farms.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni called the operation "the largest seizure ever made" against the Mafia.
General Antonio Girone, head of the national anti-Mafia agency DIA, said Nicastri was linked to Matteo Messina Denaro, believed to be Mafia's current "boss of bosses."
Investigators said Nicastri's companies ran numerous wind farms as well as factories that produced solar energy panels.
"It's no surprise that the Sicilian Mafia was infiltrating profitable areas like wind and solar energy," Palermo magistrate Francesco Messineo told a news conference.
Officials said the operation was based on a 2,400-page investigative report and followed the arrest of Nicastri last year.
Senator Costantino Garraffa, a member of the parliamentary anti-Mafia committee, said the Mafia was trying to break into the "new economy," of alternative energy as it sought out virgin ventures to launder money from drugs and other rackets.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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we have our own crime thugs/groups over here doing the same thing... al gore for instance... when I hear any of those losers say “let’s go green”, what I interpret it to be is “give me your green money, you can keep the change....”
prolly some usa stimulas cash in there as well
lol our mafia has the white house.
Amtrak should get Columbian drug cartels to invest and they too can become profitable. They already have stops in the major distribution centers.
Oh please don’t think they’re doing this to combat organized crime in the South.
99%+ of the politicians in Italia are on the take - that’s how you get elected there (and I have elected relatives there, I oughtta know)
It’s wealth confiscation - a few entrepreneurs brave enough to venture capital in legit business are suddenly being targeted.
Don’t think for a second those well-placed polis in Italy give a rat’s butt about crime, or the environment - they just see somebody making money & they want in on it. Don’t believe me? read up on the history of the Italian railroads to see for yourself.
But the Tony Sopranos of this world get no sympathy from me. Instead of going out and taking care of business, they apparently all went to the movies to see Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth." (Ital Trans: "Il Flabbergasto.")
Last time I was in Italy, Fat Al would be glad to know I saw a prison with solar panels on the roof.
I'm shocked, simply shocked. LOL.
Now can we expose all of their co-conspirators holding public office?
Gee, The mafia has been going green long before it was chic for rest of us...Haven't you heard the expression, "the grass is always greener over the remains of Jimmy Hoffa?"
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